‘How to Read a Painting’ – Why Do You See Columns in the ‘Mona Lisa’?

1. Why do you see a hint of columns on the far right and left in the Mona Lisa?
2. Where in The Last Supper do you find Judas knocking over the salt?
3. Why does the man stand next to the window and the woman away from it in Giovanni Arnofini and His Wife (sometimes called The Marriage of the Arnolfini)?

Patrick De Rynck deals with these and other questions in his How to Read a Painting: Lessons From the Old Masters (Abrams, 2004), an excellent collection of analyses of more than 100 great paintings, each shown on a two-page spread with callouts that highlight some of its interesting aspects. Many good books for children or adults take a similar approach to art, but this is the best I’ve found in more than a decade of keeping an eye on the category. I’ll have answers to the art quiz later this week and more on How to Read a Painting soon.

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thanks, Jan. Sounds like the sort of thing I should know/should have learned but would love to have answered outright in such a book. And like the idea of the callouts. I have trouble applying myself to onion-skin reference-type pages to glean info and this could be right up my sometimes short attention span alley!

You’re very welcome. The title of “How to Read a Painting” is quite accurate — the book deals with the story told by each painting and tends to discuss technique only as it relates to that narrative. So it’s very well-focused in addition to its other virtues.

Another book I might have missed altogether without your keen eye and amazing work ethic!

I live close to the Ringling Art Museum and visit often, always eager to learn more; this book is no doubt the sort that will allow me to pick up new insights within the tiny spaces left in my life for such pursuits.

Thank you, GG … another post with excellent timing. We had another near-catastrophe here yesterday: A storm bad enough that trains stopped running, a building three doors from mine got hit by lightning and Internet service was disrupted.

As soon as I can take a deep breath, I am going to do a post that relates this to literature …